Cholera kills 48 after north Ghana flooding

08:01 a.m. Sep 14, 1999 Eastern

ACCRA, Sept 14 (Reuters) - At least 48 people have died from an outbreak of cholera in northern Ghana following torrential rains and flooding which made some 9,000 people homeless, the Ghana News Agency reported.

It said on Monday night that the rains last week had destroyed food crops and swept away hamlets, roads and bridges in the impoverished Upper East and Northern regions.

Three main roads were impassable, while three dams and a bridge had collapsed, it said.

Unusually heavy rainfall in neighbouring Burkina Faso, whose swollen Red and White Volta rivers drain into Ghana's Volta river, has aggravated the situation after Burkina Faso had to open the spillways of the Bagre Dam in the White Volta River.